Author Comments

Working with the animation students at Brigham Young University has been a real treat. After much blood, sweat, and tears, we have finally completed Alight. We spent countless hours animating Sparker, the "fire boy," and Aquanna the "water girl," to get the effects and character animation looking just right. To us, they're almost real-life characters by now. We hope you enjoy this unique little piece of Flash animation, mixed with After Effects compositing.

Reviews

Rated 5 / 5 stars2017-10-02 14:32:36

Rated 4 / 5 stars2016-04-04 19:51:17

Very nice

There are a number of reasons why I like this one, specifecly the flexability and the attitude you presented here making it into a good quality and stylish experience, which is why I have enjoyed it as much as I did. but anyways lets get more into this review and more on ways it can even be better. It started off great with awsome music and good animation, actually the visuals are great and really stood out it was a touching story and all seemed to work well for eachother So its interesting when we come to an end of things, we tend to come up with some interesting things to top it off this was sort of like a magic act or trick of sorts but you really topped it off to make it interesting enough for a good ending.

~~THINGS TO IMPROVE ON~~
I think its solid the way it is but I do enjoy it.

Rated 5 / 5 stars2016-02-26 23:42:59

First, im aware this is an old piece, but i love this to no end. i am a great fan of short animations and this is easily the top of my list.

second, in response to @Evilgrapez :

while i can say that the characters introduction is short and their time as well, you learn quite a bit about them.

Sparker is a fast paced and energetic character who is easily amused and friendly, while Aquanna is graceful, calm, and shy.
You can gather these things from their facial expressions, movements, and their element.

as for the story, its spontaneous and while slightly confusing, i think has a quite explainable plot. Lets start from Aquannas death and Sparkers fury.

Sparkers fury is linked to both his element (as fire is associated with rage and anger) and Aquannas death. even though they had very little interactions, a bond was clearly formed. His rage unlocks the classic "harm someones love, indestructible vengeance mode activate" scenario. (something ive found extremely common in characters i create based on my personality lol, as well as a common hero archtype)

after that he unlocks hidden potential/power and destroys the strange mechanical castle. After this we have the scene with the exoskeleton that becomes human (although not certain.).

my interpenetration is quite simple, but in my mind meaningful. the exoskeleton isnt exactly explainable, but it somehow was created from the ruins of the castle. the flames that burn th castle are the remnants of Sparker, and they bind to the exoskeleton forming a body. as it begins to rain, a symbol of Aquanna, it cools the body and forms the skin. this causes both fire and water to become one and able to be together. back in the beginning Sparker and Aquanna had attempted to hold hands but could not because touching fire to water had hurt them (maybe.).

Rated 3.5 / 5 stars2015-10-17 00:53:13

Well, the animation was well done. I especially liked the animation of Sparker and Aquanna. The soundtrack also fit the mood and was pretty good. But then the story came in. Basically, this was my reaction by the end of it:

Wha- what?

The story didn't really make sense. Alright, so a Fire Boy and a Water Girl meet when suddenly BAM. Water Girl dies from a giant castle that randomly springed up out of the ground and crushed her. The castle magically lifts up to show Water Girl dying, and then dead a few seconds later. Fire Boy now wants revenge apparently, flies up to the castle, and obliterates it in one shot. Then a giant mech pops out of the rubble and transforms into a...human?! What?? Then the credits roll.

I'm sorry, but that didn't feel touching at all. You had only met the characters for about a minute before one of them gets killed off (literally: the character is introduced at 00:12 and dies at 01:10). You need to have the character alive for a little while so that when she dies, the reaction is much more emotional than just "Oh. Water Girl died I guess."

And the ending made no sense. Where did the mech come from? Why did it turn into a human all of a sudden? Where was Fire Boy? WHAT JUST HAPPENED THERE?!

I'm still giving it 3 stars for the animation, and another half a star for soundtrack. Good job on that. Work on your story and I think this might be pretty good. :)